Archaeology

Italy

Villa dei Papyri
Future excavation of the Villa of the Papyri (inspiration for the Getty Museum in California) is now assured thanks to the support of Hewlett Packard millionaire David W Packard. Around 1800 scrolls were found there in previous digs: it is believed that there are thousands more to be found, possibly including many of the lost works of Greek and Latin literature. Decipherment is a problem: the scrolls were carbonised by the eruption of 79 AD, and then soaked with water. They are extremely fragile, and have to be unrolled with very great care, in an atmosphere with no draughts!
(Unpleasant in Naples). They can only be read in the height of summer when there is sufficient light overhead in Naples - artificial light is useless for distingishing the black writing from the black
burnt papyrus. But amazing discoveries have already been made. See the Philodemus Project website.
[February 2005]

Grumio cenam parat? Much alarm has been generated in Italy and internationally by Italian
prime minister Berlusconi's proposal to privatise museum and archaeological
sites. Pompeii, for example, could be hired out for that exclusive dinner
party. Apparently the Sistine Chapel has been available for private
hire (weddings, though presumably not barmitzvahs) for some time. [Guardian
November 24 2001]

A Roman out-of-town leisure complex
Compared to Las Vegas by its British discoverers - though it sounds
to me more like Brent Cross (shopping centre in North London - ed.)
- an amphitheatre with shopping mall attached has been discovered 45
miles south of Rome - a day's ride down the Via Salaria or the Via Flaminia.
As there was no actual town there, it's being assumed that Romans and
others would come for a day's shopping and entertainment [Guardian 17
June 2000]

Pompeii and circumstance
The traditional image of Pompeii as a rather dull middle-class town
remarkable only for having survived has taken a knock. Antonio Varone
(Pompeii: the Mysteries of a Buried City) claims that there were massive
inequalities in the town. A rich ruling elite kept the poor masses
where they wanted them with subsidised prostitutuion and wine, and
free entry to the Amphitheatre - and used their weealth to escape
the erution, while the proles struggled to collect their few belongings.
The recent discovery of a hotel complex with a luxury restaurant just
outside Pompeii would seem to to add weight to Mr Varone's argument
- but the jury is out.[Guardian 13 June 2000]

Return of the Getty
The Getty Museum has returned three items to Italy, which it agrees
were "illegally excavated" (a cup by Euphronios painted by Onesimos),
"stolen from a store-room of an excavation" (marble diadoumenos head:
Roman copy of Polycleitos, from ancient Venusia) and "missing from a
private collection" (torso of Mithras). The combined value woulld be
several million pounds. [Daily Telegraph September 20,
1999]

"Changing Rooms" at Pompeii
New discoveries at Pompeii suggest that the average Pompeian may have
been more interested in DIY ("fac id ipse") than in "balnea,
vina, venus". Excavations in The House of the Vestals show six major
revamping projects were carried out, continuing after the earthquake
of 71, and still in progress when all work ceased in 79 AD. Work included
an extension, converting a kitchen into a playroom, adding a swimming
pool. It's clear that the family had moved out to let the builders in
at the time of the eruption, because of the presence of a larger than
normal colony of snails. They only like damp conditions, and very few
are found where a house is being lived in normally. Experts relate the
building boom to the growing prosperity of Pompeii as a trading port
in the 1st century AD. [Note :"Changing Rooms" is an absurdly successful
program on BBC TV, where couples redecorate rooms in each others' houses.] [The Independent on Sunday - article and pictures - Sunday
April 25 1999]

Roman Ships - from the mud of Pisa
No fewer than eight complete ships from the Roman period have been discovered
buried in the mud of what was once the harbour of Pisa, on the west
coast of Italy. According to British archaeologist Andrew Wallace-Hadrill,
"[the wood] is as fresh as the day the ships sank. This is a very exciting
find. ...Perhaps a fifth of the of the boats have been uncovered ...
there is even more to come."
The ships vary in size (24ft to 90 ft), date (3rd century BC to 5th
century AD) and equipment (some were oared, some had sails). Most of
them (although one may be a warship - if so it's the first "navis longa"
ever found) were smallish coasters - maybe used to reship goods from
larger vessels moored offshore, or for short trips along the coast.
The cargo was varied - some contained the usual amphoras used to transport
wine or oil, but there is also a wild boar's jawbone, complete with
tusks. Opinions vary as to whether all the ships foundered in a freak
storm, or went down separately in a number of incidents over the years.
[The Times - article and pictures - Wednesday April 21 1999]

Nero's Domus Aurea reopens
The amazing palace built in Rome by the emperor Nero (AD 54 - 68) has
been reopened to the public after 20 years. It was first rediscovered in the
renaissance (1494) - the word "grotesque" was originally coined to describe
the art which decorated the walls. This was because the rooms had become
like huge vaulted underground grottoes with the passage of time. In
the entrance was the 30 metre gilded Colossus of the young genius himself
(once thought to have given its name to the Colosseum, which was later
built on the site). Among the hundreds of statues plundered from the
Greek world was the famous Laocoön, now in the Vatican. The 12
metre high walls of the rooms were covered with 30,000 square metres
of fresco - which included painted windows with fabulous views. 120
rooms are known, of which a mere 30 are now open, including the Octagonal
Room, whose dome could allegedly slide back showering rose petals on
the guests below. No doubt the opening will also reopen the controversy
about Nero himself - the Domus Aurea was certainly one of the most imaginative
projects ever undertaken in Rome. But does this mean that its inspiration
could not have been a depraved tyrant? [Daily Mail June
24 1999 and other UK press]

Euphronios arrested in Rome
A fragment of a phiale signed by the great Euphronios (c520-470 BC),
one of the two great innovators in red figure vase painting (the other
was Euthymides) has come to light in Rome. Its dodgy provenance - from
a Swiss "collector" via Sotheby's to the Getty Museum, who voluntarily
returned it to Italy - led to its seizure by the Roman art theft squad.
Descibed by the Times as an example of both Trojan and Etruscan art,
it's in fact, of course an example of Athenian vase painting at its
best.
At the left Helen (she's named on the pot)runs forward arms outstretched,
palms upwards, towards her husband Menelaus. Euphronius has tried to
show Menelaus in the act of spinning round, seeing his wife, and dropping
his sword in amazement. His left leg is still moving away from his wife,
while his right(which her left foot overlaps) moves towards her. Anatomically
impossible - but artistically amazing! Behind them - as if the emotion
of the occasion needed to be pointed out - hovers a tiny winged Eros,
with his arms outstretched between the faces of the couple symbolically
uniting them. [The Times - article and picture June 8th 1999]

Words from the Etruscans
The Etruscans - an ancient Mediterranean people even more mysterious
than the Phoenicians have dropped a few more clues to deciphering their
language. 27 new words have been added to the vocabulary of 500 by the
discovery of a 2,300 year old bronze tablet - known as the Tabula
Cortonensis, after the Tuscan hill town of Cortona where it was
found in 1992. Maybe there will now be enough to settle the ancient
problem of the affinities of the language - although a recent book published
in Spain claims to prove it was connected with the enigmatic Basque
language, and that of the Tuareg in North Africa. [UK Press
July 2, 1999]

L'uomo del ponte ha detto sì
A dream of Italians and Sicilians since 251 BC has been a bridge over
the straits of Messina. What The consul L.Caecilius Metellus couldn't
achieve now looks distinctly possible. Patently foolish ideas like an
undersea tunnel, creating an artificial isthmus have been abandoned
in favour of a single span suspension bridge. The man from the bridge
(Nino Calarco) has said "yes!". [Oggi 18 Sept, 1999]

The Colosseum comes out against Death
The Flavian Amphitheatre - where condemned prisoners were once casually
put to death to entertain the bored crowds at lunchtime - is to be a
new symbol of Italy's campaign against the death penalty worldwide.
The new brilliant white lighting will change to gold for 48 hours every
time a convict ondeath row is reprieved, or a country abandons the death
penalty. The organisers - who include The Vatican, Amnesty International
and the United Nations hope to put pressure on backward nations with
this clever way of equating ancient and modern barbarity.[December 13,
1999]

Villa dei Papiri: cash crisis
The Greek library at the villa has been known since 1750, and thousands
of Greek manuscripts have been recovered. Most are in the Naples Museum,
where each summer scholars endure intense heat during the short period
when work on the scrolls is possible: as the scolls were burnt, the
writing is "black on black", and can only be read under bright natural
light. No ventilation is possible: it might disturb the fragments. The
villa may have belonged to Philodemus of Gadara, the Epicuream philosopher
(110 - 35BC) - or perhaps he was just a frequent guest, as there's a
large amount of his writings among the papyri in the Greek Library.
Other claimmants include L. Calpurnius Piso, Caesar's father-in-law.
But where is the Latin Library, which according to the Times report "contained
lost works by Homer who was a frequent visitor to the villa" (sic!!)? Villas
of this class normally had separate libraries for works in each language:
but there's no money to look for it. (Article in Times May 25th 1998
- with inaccuracies!)

Bill's Sicilian Connection
The Italian government is starting legal proceedings against Maurice
Templesman, friend and advisor to Bill Clinton (and partner of the late
Jackie Onassis), who is believed to have in his possession archaeological
artefacts originally looted from the town of Morgantina, Sicily. The
treasures, bought legitimately in London in 1980 include two archaic
marble heads, and hands and feet from the 6th century BC statues of
Demeter and Persephone. Persephone herself was kidnapped only a few
miles away, while picking flowers near Lake Pergusa, near Enna. The
Clinton regime is not thought to be implicated in this earlier disappearance.
(Sunday Times May 24th 1998)

Dead or Olive?
The oldest Olive Tree in Europe is no more. An arsonist destroyed it
last week - and a living thing which had taken 2000 years to grow to
70 feet high with a circumference of 25 feet was a pile of ash. The
tree, growing near Grosseto in Italy, was believed to have been planted
by a descendant of one of the veteran soldiers settled on the land by
Tiberius Gracchus in the 2nd century BC. The reason for the fire is
unknown - but such arson attacks in Italy are often motivated by "business".
(Compare the fire recently at the appropriately named La Fenice theatre
in Venice). But dendrophiles should remember the sacred olive tree of
Athena on the Acropolis, which sprouted again the next day after it
was burnt by the Persians in 480 BC. (Guardian, May 15th 1998)

Rome from the Air - 64 AD
Last weekend, archaeologists discovered a fresco on an ancient wall
on the Esquiline Hill. The site is close to Nero's Domus Aurea
- his architecturally innovative palace built on land "freed up" by
the Great Fire of AD 64, and may well have been part of the complex,
which included lakes, woods and parkland. The real interest is that
the fresco (10ft by 6ft in size) - no cleaning has yet been attempted
for fear of damaging it - seems to be a "bird's eye view" of the city
before the fire. Temples and other buildings show up red on a bluish
background, and there's a bridge across the Tiber with houses on it,
like the Ponte Vecchio in Florence. (Daily Telegraph 5th
March 1998)

Marcus Aurelius rides again
The famous 2nd century AD bronze statue of Marcus Aurelius on his horse
is back in its place on the Capitol in Rome after 16 years - but it's
a brilliant copy, the original being in the nearby museum. This is the
only equestrian statue to have survived, and in its original location,
from the ancient world (probably because they thought the emperor was
the Christian Constantine, not Stoic Marcus). It was an inspiration to
later sculptors - including Michelangelo.
Pictures [Times, 21 April 1997]